UPDATED: Lonely Planet and the rapid decline of the printed guidebook
Skift Take
Professionally created guides will always have a place in the traveler's toolkit, but they aren't going to be limited to paper any more and the next generation of guidebook brands will need to make the business work sooner rather than later.
[Updated to reflect sale of Lonely Planet]
The announced sale of Lonely Planet today for $121 million less than BBC Worldwide paid for it only two short years caps off eight months of drama surrounding the guidebook industry and its leading players.
In August, Google announced the purchase of Frommer's from Wiley publishing for a price that later was determined at $23 million in cash and stock. In September, Penguin announced the re-evaluation of its DK and Rough Guides guidebook series, and then merged with Random House, which operated Fodor's and publishes other travel guides. The Lonely Planet sale had been rumored since at least December and confirmed two weeks ago by Skift, when it revealed the buyer.
The combined sales of Lonely Planet and Frommer's are just over $100, which was $25 million less than the combined U.S. sales of the leading travel publishers in 2007, the last great year of guidebook publishing.
The peak
Up until 2008, the guidebook industry had few signs that the bottom would soon fall out of their business. Sure, website usage was up -- both on some of their own sites and digital-only competitors -- and user-generated sites like TripAdvisor were eating some of their cake, but sales were solid.
In 2007, combined U.S. sales from
